


spare me some change

by thir13enth



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: M/M, baltholst brainworms are to blame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25808464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: Balthus has a confession to make. Holst never expects it.
Relationships: Balthazar von Adalbrecht | Balthus von Albrecht/Holst Goneril
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	spare me some change

Holst Goneril has never been self-conscious about his height — maybe except save that _one_ time ten years ago when he offered to help Hilda carry a box off a high shelf, and she only briefly glanced judiciously at him before subsequently finding _someone else_ to aid her — but now, lifting his chin up to meet his old friend’s gaze…

Well, simply put, seeing Balthus tower over him by what certainly _feels_ like a foot and a half may be the second time Holst has ever felt _any_ sort of way about his own height.

Unless of course, that why he’s feeling is really just the flutter of his heart.

After all, he surely doesn’t remember Balthus being _that_ tall and that… _big_.

“Holst!” Balthus booms, his shout cutting Holst’s thoughts in half. “Long time no see, huh?”

And with this, Balthus swings his hand in to clap his hand with Holst, who almost reciprocates before stopping himself.

“Wait, wait,” Holst pauses, stopping and withdrawing his hand. “Who the fuck am I kidding? Bring it in!” he declares, forgoing the handshake and embracing his long gone friend.

“Alright!” Balthus agrees, mirroring the motions. He steps in — and honestly with his size, he practically envelopes Holst’s entire body into his arms, crushing Holst’s head into his chest and squeezing the air out of Holst.

Holst doesn’t mind. He rather likes Balthus’s hugs.

“It’s good to see you again,” Holst says, setting his hand Balthus on the shoulder. He smirks facetiously. “I _almost_ started missing you.”

“Pff, yeah right,” Hilda retort, a voice behind Balthus. “Not like you were _constantly_ asking me all the time about him after the first time I wrote to you saying we found him in the Abyss.”

Holst chuckles nervously. “Well, I mean, of course! I just wanted to know how my old friend was doing! Wouldn’t you have done the same?”

Hilda just looks at him weirdly so Holst quickly pivots subjects, glancing back at Balthus. “You know, for all the trouble I got into at Garreg Mach, I never even got close to finding out that there’s an entire underground city… right under the Academy!”

“Yeah… I’m not sure how I got there myself,” Balthus says, scratching his head.

“Oh _please_ ,” Hilda replies, rolling her eyes. “You were probably chasing a penny down into the sewers and then couldn’t figure out a way to get back out.”

“Hilda!” Holst snaps. “That’s no way to talk to Balthus.” He turns to Balthus, arching an eyebrow. “And you? Chasing _pennies_? All I remember you chasing back in the day were girls.”

At this, Balthus’s face pales. “Oh, about that—” But he stops himself, briefly glancing back at Hilda. Hilda doesn’t make a show of any distinguishable expression. Holst can’t discern at all what kind of exchange the two of them had.

Did he say something wrong?

Maybe it was that comment about chasing after girls? Maybe… Is Balthus—

Holst’s heart skips a beat, but he quickly swallows the butterflies in his stomach.

He needs to know. He can’t lose this opportunity to know.

“What? Is there something I don’t know?”

Hilda immediately flashes him a big smile, breaking the moment. “Oh, no, nothing at all!” She lifts the suitcases in her hands. “Now move out of the way so I can bring these up.”

Without another beat, Holst immediately swoops down to take the both of her suitcases. “No, no, I got it, Hilda. _You_ _’re_ the guest right now.” She easily drops them into his hands, and Holst almost topples over, not expecting their weight.

“Seiros! What the hell, Hilda! These are literal _cinderblocks_! What do you have in here? Aren’t you only here for the weekend?”

“Well, I’m going to need a _lot_ of things if I’m supposed to keep myself entertained here,” Hilda remarks. “You can make things so dreadfully boring sometimes, you know.”

“You wound me so, dear sister.”

“Oh, you know I only do it because I know you can take it,” she teases, swerving past him to start up the stairs.

Holst trails after her, before quickly jerking his head back to Balthus, who is still staring off blankly to the side.

“Um,” Holst says, averting his eyes. “You can wait for us in the tea room if you like. You still know where that is, right?”

“Yeah… Yeah!” Balthus replies stiffly, as if shaking himself out of the awkward silence.

Without another word, Holst climbs the rest of the stairs, finally dropping Hilda’s luggage at the door of her room.

Hilda, sitting on her bed, crosses her legs and presses her hands together in gratitude. “Oh, thank you _so_ much, dear brother. You are simply the _best_.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he replies.

Normally, he imagines he’d add in a small quip about Hilda’s laziness or scold her about never doing work for herself, but his thoughts are currently occupied.

Hilda can tell. She tilts her head to the side, trying to meet his eyes. “What’s on your mind?”

“Oh, no. Nothing,” he says, stilted.

Hilda simply waits for him to spill, and he indeed does, only moments after.

“I was just thinking about how long it’s been since I’ve seen Balthus,” he blurts. “I mean… I knew he was coming to visit with you and all, but seeing him in person is a whole other thing.”

It’s a half-truth. In fact, Holst has actually been thinking about Balthus visiting for the entire damn week. The moment Hilda mentioned Balthus was at the Academy, Holst made certain to write to Balthus as well — ecstatic each and every time he heard back from Balthus. But all while trading letters, Holst began to feel old feelings bubble up inside of him, things he never got around to saying the last time —

“Where’d you tell Balthus to go? Let’s go back downstairs!” Hilda suggests, skipping past Holst.

“The tea room,” he says, following after her. “Can you start the water?”

Hilda doesn’t hear. Or at least, she doesn’t _seem_ to hear.

So, of course, Holst is the one that actually needs to brew the tea, while the other two chatter away. And Holst supposes he really should have been expecting that from the start. Hilda most certainly wasn’t going to make tea for the three of them, and no one dared trust Balthus with anything more delicate than stone.

But Holst doesn’t mind at all, he guesses. The time he has while waiting for the water to bubble offers him pause to sort out his thoughts anyway. His hands hover over the small tin of Almyran pine needles, Balthus’s favorite brew.

It’s one he used to make for Balthus all the time.

Opening the container, Holst gives it a quick sniff, and upon determining the tea leaves were still fresh enough, he sprinkles several healthy pinches of pine needles into the tea pot. The kettle whistles then, and Holst methodically pours the hot water over the leaves, letting the tea brew for a few minutes in the pot before pouring out three cups.

Holst likes his own tea completely black, but he knows both Hilda and Balthus enjoy otherwise.

He sets up a small container of cream and places a small plate of sugar cubes onto the tray.

Holst’s hand hesitates as he hovers over the sugar. He wonders if Balthus still likes his tea the same way — with three splashes of cream and two sugar cubes. It doesn’t matter, right? Balthus was never one to complain about his tea. Holst stirs in the cream and sugar for Balthus’s tea, making sure everything is well incorporated.

Carefully, Holst brings out the tray of tea to the tea table the other two have gathered around.

“Alright, tea for all three of us,” Holst says, placing everything down into the table. He gestures towards the sugar and small pot of cream. “There’s extra in case you want it.”

Without even taking a sip of her tea, Hilda immediately reaches for the sugar and the cream.

Holst feigns offense, holding his chest. “You didn’t even try to see if it was good!”

Hilda rolls her eyes, pouring cream without even looking. “I _know_ it’s not good,” she tells him.

“Brat,” he scoffs, sitting down and looking over at Balthus through the corner of his eye. Balthus takes a hearty sip and then places the tea down. He doesn’t say a word, and Holst opens his mouth, about to ask how he liked the tea, but he closes his mouth again, deciding it better that he not. He takes his own tea, waiting for someone to fill in the silence.

No one decides to do so however, so Holst spills out the first thing he can think.

“So how you been?”

It’s a dumb question, but what else is there to say?

“Good, good. It’s been great!” Balthus replies, half stilted. Balthus has never been good with small talk. “I mean, the Academy has been real nice to us, you know, taking us in and all.”

“That’s great,” Holst says. “You must feel so old among all the young ones.”

Balthus laughs. “Yeah, but I don’t mind. I feel like I missed out a lot about the world while I was down in the Abyss, so I’m just catching up!” Balthus raises his fist above his head, showing off a small flex of his bicep.

Holst smiles. “That’s a good way of looking at it.”

“Yeah…” Balthus’s eyes dart toward him. “What about you? Keeping the homestead protected and all?”

“Well, I’m not on the field as much as I used to. Now that I’ve kinda moved up the ranks, I’m just doing more paper pushing, you know what I mean? I kinda miss being in on the action.”

“I bet.” Balthus suddenly springs up. “Hey, we should spare again!”

“Haha, yeah, we should!” Holst forces some humor, chuckling. “Well, maybe not _right_ this second but later on.”

“Yeah, yeah, not now,” Balthus agrees quietly. He takes another sip of his tea. “Ah, this tea is great! You still know how to make a great tea, Holst. Some things haven’t changed, huh?”

Holst laughs. “Thanks,” he says, lifting his tea up for another drink as awkward silence settles in once again.

What’s going on? Holst has so much to say, has so many questions to ask — but where to start?

And why aren’t the words coming to him?

“You know what,” Hilda suddenly interrupts, taking the last few gulps of her tea and standing. She clinks the tea cup down onto the plate. “It’s been nice, but you guys are kinda boring. I’m going to go upstairs and do more fun things than talk to _you_ two.”

“ _Rude_ ,” Holst scoffs.

Hilda shrugs, whipping around and skipping away, leaving the two of them in an even louder silence than they began with.

Holst can’t manage to meet Balthus’s eyes.

Why does this feel so awkward? Is this just him that’s thinking that and making it awkward?

Fuck, why the hell did Hilda leave — now the vibes are just _super_ weird.

Holst presses himself to say something. “So, uh—”

“I got… I got something to talk to you about,” Balthus finally blurts, setting his teacup down.

Holst holds his breath. This might be the most serious that he’s ever seen Balthus.

“Y-Yeah? What about?” Holst stammers, feeling his skin grow hot. 

This has _got_ to be it. This has _got_ to be what Hilda and Balthus was exchanging looks about earlier.

Hilda _knew_.

That _has_ why she stepped out on purpose. This _has_ to be important. Could this be about—

“You know what you were saying about chasing girls and all?”

Holst freezes. This is it.

This _is_ about feelings isn’t it? This is it. Holst was about to tell him—

“It’s kinda true actually. I’m chasing a lot of coins these days,” Balthus finally confesses, as if it were the greatest sin. He lets out a deep exhale. “I’m in a lot of debt because I made a lot of bad decisions, and I’m really bad at _not_ drinking and _not_ gambling.”

Oh. This isn’t about feelings at all.

“O-Oh, right,” Holst says.

Balthus looks at him, as if surveying for any kind of judgment. He averts his eyes again. “So actually I’m here because I wanted to talk with you and catch up and all, but also I have a bit of a favor to ask. I didn’t really want to, I swear, but Hilda convinced me that I should.”

Holst blinks a few times, shaking his head gently. “No, yeah. Tell me. What’s up? How am I going to _not_ help you out?”

Balthus frowns, sighing. “I’m in debt, Holst. I swear usually it’s not this bad. It’s just that this month… well, there’s this collector that’s been hounding me for a while. I did a few jobs for him in the past so I trusted this guy, and I thought it wouldn’t be the end of me if I had to end up borrowing from him. So I did, but then he turned out to be a pretty persistent guy… and that he has a lot of friends.” Balthus rubs the back of his head. “They’ve started to track me down and well, at first my friends were trying to find a work-around solution but… it’s getting bad.”

“How much do you owe him?”

“Oh… just like… a couple grand,” Balthus manages to squeeze out.

“A couple grand?” Holst can hear the surprise in his voice. He quickly corrects it. “That’s alright. I won’t ask. And you know what? It’s fine. Two grand is nothing.”

And as if just to show him such, Holst leans forward, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet. He slaps down a few hundred notes. “Here’s 500 for now. And I can go upstairs and get some more. Right now.”

Balthus sputters on seeing the stack of money. Holst has never seen Balthus this flustered before.

“Wait! Sorry!” Balthus apologizes. “I really don’t actually mean to. I really didn’t want to rely on you for any of this.”

“Why not? You’re in trouble. Let me help you.”

“Yeah but—”

Holst shakes his head. “You’ve never asked me for anything. And this is honestly nothing. Don’t even worry about it.”

“Yeah but I feel like it’s always been me relying on you. I feel pretty bad about using you all the time.”

“What do you mean, using me all the time? I haven’t even seen you at all in the last decade!”

“Yeah, but I’m going to owe you now and—”

“Don’t even worry about it. Just take the money and go.”

Wordlessly, Balthus stares at the bills for a long moment. He looks back at Holst, and Holst gives him an affirmative nod. Balthus takes a breath and finally reaches out to pocket the money.

“Is that all?” Holst asks.

“Yeah.”

And just like that, whatever tension had been in the air is gone.

“That’s all you needed from me, right?” Holst asks.

Holst hopes not.

Balthus gives him a weak smile. “Yeah,” he replies. “Sorry. I meant to try to stick around to have some fun, but I actually have to go. They’re expecting me before noon.”

Holst looks at the time, raising an eyebrow when he sees the clock. “It’s almost fucking 11 — get the fuck going!”

“O-Okay, okay!” Balthus lifts himself up from the chair. “If it’s alright with you!”

“Yes, you idiot!” Holst stands as well, starting to lead Balthus back to the front door. “I can’t believe you didn’t ask for me help as soon as you needed it. Go pay off those debts!”

“You sure this is fine? We’re good, right?”

“Of course, we’re good,” Holst affirms. “You never did anything wrong.”

Balthus locks eyes with him a moment, and Holst pats him on the shoulder — reaching his hand high up to do so.

“I’ll be back. Let me get you that extra 15 hundred,” Holst says.

This he does, going upstairs and stepping off what was left of his nerves.

That’s really it, huh? Holst laughs quietly to himself, parsing out the bills. Balthus just needed a little bit of money.

All that awkwardness for something so simple…

Holst twists his lips, then adding an extra thousand into his hand before rushing back downstairs to meet Balthus again.

“Here,” he says, pressing the money into Balthus’s hand. “I added an extra bit of money. Just in case.”

“Th-thank you,” Balthus says, blinking fast. He stares at the money for a while before securely stuffing it with the rest of his valuables.

“You’re absolutely welcome.”

Balthus half turns, reaching for the door handle to leave. But he stops, resting his hand at the door for a moment and looking back at Holst. “I’m coming back. I’m going to come back with your money. I promise.”

Holst rolls his eyes emphatically. “I thought this was already clear. I don’t care if you pay me back,” Holst frustratingly says. “I don’t need your money. I just need you.” And then Holst quickly adds, “Back in one piece.”

Balthus doesn’t seem to notice the gap in Holst’s words. He brandishes him a big smile.

“I always come back in one piece,” he promises.

Some things never change, huh?

**Author's Note:**

> yeah, yeah. i know money doesn’t really work the same way it does in modern times but forgive me
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/napsbeforesleep) obsessed with characters that have zero screen time


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